Cannabis prohibition is institutionalized racism.

Colors seem to fade

To shades of gray. Not black and white. Very little in this world is black and white, except the words.

Tip the fedora to malicenwunderland

Happy blogiversary to Mockingbird’s Medley

Mimus Pauly thinks this is the best post he’s ever written. He may be right.

John Lennon made lots of money too

John Edwards is a very rich man. He can afford a $400 haircut. He has made no secret of this.

He has not unjustly enriched himself, to my knowledge.

This cannot be said of Republicans who profit from human misery.

I know a man named John.

Dana Rohrabacher (hat-tip Ted):

For example, I know in one or two cases you have a man whose name was exactly the same name as a Muslim that was involved in al Qaeda. To the degree there are a few of those cases, we should do our best to make sure those cases don’t exist, try to find a system to root them out.

But, here’s the other shoe dropping, we are at war, and we’ve got to make sure that we do not let go 50 terrorists who will go out and plant a bomb in London and kill 20,000 people in order to protect that one person who we arrested accidentally because his name was the same. That’s the type of unfortunate consequence.

I guess Dana feels comfortable that there aren’t too many men with his name.

Orrin Hatch

Looks like he might be up for the AG position.

Short reminder

The American constitution proclaimed democracy with the words, “We, the people.” Despite it having been drafted by some small number of men, and consecrated many injustices in the name of compromise, these opening words gave acknowledgment to the authority of the people to exercise sovereignty.

George Bush wants to resign now.

How else to interpret the fact that he’s seeking a new Commander-in-Chief?

For the want of a reply…

Cannabis is neither physically addictive nor toxic in any demonstrated way, it is beneficial to health for people who have conditions that it treats, and no possibility of overdose fatality exists. It is, in short, perhaps the safest medicine known to humankind.

Those who, like myself, suffer from chronic pain, and use cannabis under a doctor’s recommendation, will use it every single day, because we benefit from having pain relief, and it does not impair our function. To the contrary, we are less functional without it because we then have untreated pain.

You cannot honestly say that it would be better to take some prescribed opiate or over-the-counter drug that causes liver damage. Cannabis does not cause organ damage.

Those who have no pain to begin with will have no need of cannabis, but those who are addicted to other drugs would be well advised to switch, were it only legal to do so. Cannabis can treat cocaine, heroin and other dependency, by helping make withdrawal less difficult. Those other drugs can kill, and have very serious withdrawal symptoms that can be dangerous, making their addictiveness truly horrific.

Cannabis is benign, it is beneficial, it is good. It is not for everyone, some will dislike it (and I dislike broccoli, so there). I would not give it to children unless a doctor thought it was appropriate to recommend. There is no real harm in adults using cannabis, except for the harms consequent to prohibition. These are points you may wish to contest, and the social consequences of cannabis are important considerations as well. I’m looking forward to having that conversation with more of you.

Floating an idea…

This is a continuation of an earlier post on blogonomics.

What about a dues-optional voluntary association which could work to bring about the following outcomes and criteria for members.

1. Members who are bloggers would receive some monthly stipend which could be very small, as little as a few dollars, but this would be promised every month as long as the member remained in good standing as a member blogger;
2. In order to be a member in good standing, each person would have to be at all times sponsored by at least one other member also in good standing;
3. Any member can sponsor any number of members, and be sponsored by any number of members;
4. Sponsors can withdraw sponsorship at any time and for any reason, but members must have a way to communicate need and have sufficient time to obtain new sponsorship if necessary;
5. Non-bloggers can also be members and would receive no stipend, they must otherwise meet the same requirements and have the same membership rights as member bloggers.

It’s just a starting point for discussion.

Eurocentric, but good.

My generation remembers, and we do not forget the terrible price inflicted. We need a time to heal.

The times in which this was made and broadcast, we were children, they could say no more than this much. We can say more now. We need to learn to live in peace with one another and to respect our different traditions, while allowing our children to go outside our old traditions. We need to acknowledge that the sins of our forefathers are visited upon their victims, and make our own apologies for having the fruits of injustice. Yet the good that our fathers did may outweigh any incidental harm if we can all find a way to share the fruits of joy and love with one another.

I ask forgiveness of all who may think I have done them a harm by existing, or by accepting any gift which helps to sustain my life, if it ever occurred at your expense and without permission. I do not wish to be led astray from the truth by hopes of wealth, but I wish to preserve and protect that which is valuable to all of humankind.

If you feel I have done a greater harm, or if I have done one that could not be avoided that requires more explanation, I will ask that I be told. This is not the place for putting personal grievances which require knowledge of who I am, but to what you see before you. If you feel I am unjust or wrong, tell me so.

Did you ever want to be part of something good?

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jKiLO2LtMM]

Synchronization

I planned to make a post which would be called Synchronization, the music was to be the song, “Time After Time” by Cyndy Lauper. I intended to produce some synchronicity but did not know what it was to be.

I went to video.google.com and searched for “time after time”.

The first result follows:

I was first introduced to Eva Cassidy on April 1. She may be invisible, but she seems to be doing her thing.

Recommended listening:

• Listen to the wind

Copyright be damned, and torturers go to hell real quick

Here is Terry Jones. Via Why Now?

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe – especially with a bag over their head – but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer – whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

Do you prefer plagues of locusts?

What is six times nine in base thirteen?

The act of writing is the means by which our consciousness can be focused and analyzed for coherence. If our thoughts are jumbled we would write in such a fashion. If we have a point to make, our thoughts can be arranged around that point. If we are searching for something which others could help find, our thoughts might be phrased as questions. If we already know the answer, it might be that in asking it of others we answer it to everyone.

What is the Ultimate Question?

You know. Life, the Universe and Everything.

Can you compute?

Following, the back of the Regional Transit Connection ID Center Processing Fee Receipt calculation, and verified by my wife, the graduate statistician.

Pirates are the ones that steal the gold, not the kids listening to the music

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are a bunch of music pirates that extort money to line their own pockets from people who cannot afford to defend themselves from barratry and who are accused of the awful sin of unauthorized listening to music.

Not that I have a strong opinion about them or anything.

Chuck Dupree has more.

Update: Xeni Jardin writes about the RIAA going after a ten-year-old girl (seven when she’s alleged to have done the dirty downloading deed).

He will squeal like a stuck pig, once he knows he’s stuck

digby, on Karl Rove:

Getting the truth from this disabled fellow in simple interviews has already proven to be a big waste of time. Better to just put him under penalty of perjury from the beginning. Recent history shows that he can barely remember his name unless he’s facing jail time.

So easy even a caveman could understand it

Glenn Greenwald:

First, the President began his Press Conference by admitting that the administration’s explanations as to what happened here have been — to use his own words — “confusing” and “incomplete.” Why, then, would Congress possibly trust Bush officials to provide more explanations in an off-the-record, no-transcript setting where there are no legal consequences from failing to tell the truth?

Related posts:

• A real problem for somebody
• First denial, then anger. Next up?
• Impeachment testimony

Social Anxiety- A common thread?

Hypothesis: Anxiety disorders play a key role behind the immense popularity of internet interactions.

Disclaimer: This observation isn’t backed by Harvard studies (as far as I know), I didn’t read up on it or seek supporting statistics; Im working from simple observation.

Basis: First a reference here or there: A favorite blogger will mention a bout of agoraphobia, a reader comments on ‘being shy’. A friend links to a friend who has just endured a terrible panic attack.

Skip to a thread forum where one person admits to crippling anxiety disorder. First one, then three, then nine people come out of the woodwork with words of encouragement and similar confessions.

Overthink: Doesn’t it make sense that the internet would provide the best socializing alternative for those with acute shyness, agoraphobia or crippling anxiety? We all need to socialize. Trends in westernized cultures actually exacerbate feelings of isolation, both through social stigmas toward people with mental health hang-ups, and a general movement toward solitary activities, independent pursuits, and families that are supposed to be ‘self-sufficient’ rather than integral members of cohesive societies that rely upon, and provide for others in their community.

Solutions: Hm. Do you approach the individual or the society? I don’t know how to cure societal ailments, but on the individual anxiety issue, maybe ask whig.

A real problem for somebody

Click e-mail for more.

Hat-tip Donna.

Related post:

• Bite-sized morsels of obstruction of justice stay crisp and crunchy in milk

There’s a certain slant of light…

It’s been a weird day. There’s a quiet today, almost like the ceiling of the world is pressing down. I’m listening in, and everybody’s hushed. One thing happened, this happened, I’ve been given the ‘keys’ to post here on cannablog. This got me to fretting a little: What if I don’t write right? What if we have inextricably diverging visions? There wasn’t a lot of direction given, more like “Here you go. Sink or swim.”

So. In just such a situation I think whig himself would go relax with some herbal remedies. My solution is to just write. It’s a good combo, really. He’s major on the visuals, I’m crazy on the words. I guess if this doesn’t suit, I’ll just congenially hand the keys back.

And for today, such a weird, silent day, a dead hermit and favorite poet said it better than I ever could.

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

-Emily Dickinson

When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Remembering the future

Where do you think you’re going?

Democracy

A peaceful revolutionary bloodless coup d’etat. And then?

Executive slate and cabinet, imagined and incomplete

Comments welcome.

President: Bill Richardson
Vice President: Barack Obama

Secretary of State: John Edwards
Secretary of Defense: John Murtha
Attorney General: Glenn Greenwald
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Maxine Waters
Secretary of Transportation: John Gilmore
Secretary of Energy: Al Gore
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Chuck Hagel Max Cleland
Director of the National Drug Control Policy: Allison Margolin

Bill Richardson for president

He hasn’t declared yet, but if he does decide to run, I think many people will be favorably disposed.

Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday that he realizes his action could become an issue in the presidential race.

“So what if it’s risky? It’s the right thing to do,” said Richardson, one of the candidates in the crowded 2008 field.

Source: AP via Creature.

Something to think about

All life is intelligent

Consider a simple plant, which knows at a deep cellular level how to find and transform water, air, sunlight and a few minerals into complex forms of great beauty and practical utility. You may not know how to communicate with all life, but all life communicates in its own way. Herbs put forth scents and spices, which give us pleasure and medicine at once, and we think it an evolutionary accident only if we presuppose no intelligence prior to our emergence as humans.

Related post:

• Here.

Various items

1. I began this post intending to write about broadcast reform, but got sidetracked. The public airwaves belong to the public, they are not the private property of licensees to spectrum. We the public own the spectrum in common and for our benefit, not for private profit unless that is consistent with our own public interest. I will come back to this in a future post but welcome general discussion in the comments.

2. It happens that America has come to believe in an economic theory of competition, a capitalist Darwinian survival of the fittest. Shamefully, we treat people as human capital, as resources to be exploited and consumers to be sold, and not as independent members of the public whose object the government is meant to serve. But we do not have a government of, for and by the people today. We have a government of, for and by the rich and powerful.

3. We do not need to compete in everything, we can cooperate instead. We can help one another with our ideas and our efforts to achieve a common purpose. This is not communism, this is just community.

Free software has taught me to be generous with my own talents, and to be able to use the commons at will means we are assured of our freedom and independence, because we cannot be held hostage to the proprietary limitations of the rent seekers.

4. I’m going to be posting another version of the Chromosphere in a day or so, maybe later tonight if I’m inspired enough. This project is really a life’s work for me, even though it is only a bare skeleton of the idea currently sketched out and on display. This is a new way of communicating, a living language. It is an old way of communicating, too. Perhaps we are all having conversations around one another and not understanding.

In the meantime, please do check it out if you can spare ten minutes, and if you feel like tossing me a dime or buying me lunch sometime you can use Paypal from there. I prefer not to ask donations here at Cannablog, because I don’t ever want to have my politics or my religion or any of my beliefs a matter of monetary gain. But if you like my work and want to support free software, art and music, I sure appreciate it.

Update: version1 has been released.

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?

Watching my recent visitors compared to those who have been reading this blog for awhile, we are becoming more of a musical tribe and less of a political one. Unfortunately for my desire to abstain from national politics, I cannot put out of my mind the pictures of torture that have been committed. And it is not the actual photographs, which I would not care to see more than I must, but the knowledge that it is going on even now and worse.

This is still a political blog, until the administration and those who continue to dehumanize the world with such foulness are removed from power. We must restore civilization now.

Al Gore

You are more credible as a non-candidate. Global warming has been demonstrated to be even more serious than most of us believed a short time ago. This cannot be a time to divide our people according to those who believe in the importance of addressing global warming and might prefer another candidate. Please continue to be a leader for the issue you have championed for so long. Most of us will never be president either.

Shakespeare’s nephew

You could define E-Prime as the English language written or spoken without use of the words, “to be.” The statement, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” could have as one possible translation, “I question my existence.” Everyone does, of course. You could think of U-Prime as E-Prime without the use of “I.” So much seems unexpressible. If “I” does not exist, then how can these thoughts have value? Because in reading them, they become your thoughts.

Habeas. You have.

Taste, Feel, Smell, Sound, Grow, Remain, Stay, Turn. Others exist, these came first to mind from childhood.

Move, Slide, Rearrange, Smile, Love.

Create.

Thinking bloggers

Ellroon tags me with an award.

Congratulations to the following five bloggers to whom I pass along this same award.

1. ggwfung of Ideas Man,
2. Creature of State of the Day,
3. Chris Dashiell of Dashiell,
4. Doctor Biobrain, and
5. D r i f t g l a s s.

Should you accept this Thinking Blogger award and choose to participate further (but you need not do so unless you wish), you may observe the following participation rules.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

I’d like to thank the little people, the Academy, and of course my lovely wife.

Just something to keep in mind

On the matter of the presidential pardon being used at any time to halt the investigation of this administration and its co-conspirators, such a pardon does not protect a person from giving future testimony to a grand jury, petit jury or the congress under the penalty of perjury for false statements. Moreover, a pardoned individual cannot raise a legitimate fifth amendment defense against self-incrimination with respect to the pardoned acts, but must testify truthfully to all that is known as one under a grant of prosecutorial immunity.

Related post:

• Checkmate

Global warming a reality

We might as well make the best of it, and this will probably be good for Finland’s tourism and immigration, if they wanted such things. The downside to tourism (and for that matter, the general warming trend) is that we lose our traditional winter cultures. We need to preserve them, however, for future generations to survive a time when the world might again return to the past or present day temperatures. We as a human species need to be prepared to live in changing environments and teach our descendents how we have fashioned ways of surviving.

That, you see, is the purpose of religion.

It is a survival trait of the human race, and of all species of animal and plant. We alter ourselves by our choices of what we value and pass along to the next generation. In our choices of how and who we conceive with, on a physical plane but also on an intellectual or emotional plane, because these teach others and ourselves to make good or bad choices as we and others have made.

Here’s some pictures of Finland.

I pass along my understanding of the world as I gain it, and sometimes my understanding changes. I am willing to admit that I make mistakes. We all do, but not everyone will say so.

All of the mythologies are history. None of them are false, in the sense that they aren’t talking about real things, but they are metaphors to some extent, due to the limitations of human language. When and as we overcome our communication barriers, our language becomes stronger and our stories become better.

Not every story is a good example to follow. You need to be discerning. Consider whether the source is trustworthy. Test for yourself. What do you want to be when you evolve?

Whose example do you follow? Do you evolve beyond that?

What will humanity be like in the future? What do you think we can do right now?

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

— Mohandas Gandhi

Is it A.D. yet?

Music is language, handwritten and spelled

skippy had it, watch and listen how a master does it.

Related posts:

• Music is language.
• Music is language.

Web two point oh

I’ve been sharply critical of Google being involved in supporting Republicans, as controversial in its way as when they assisted China in limiting search results for that country. Now Google is doing something to change their fundamental search algorithm, by reducing the impact of links (which can be abused to create a false popularity rating) they will be putting more emphasis on the PageRank algorithm. This is to say, users of Google will determine page ranking in a form of direct democracy.

That is all a good thing if we want to try the democratic experiment, and apparently we do, but some attention must be paid to the counters of the votes. For that is what Google is presenting to us, as a gatekeeper to our network, will they practice censorship?

Yes. They will. You will not find terrorist manuals on Google. You will not find instructions on how to make a nuclear weapon. Google will take steps to reduce the ranking of pages that encourage violence.

All of that may be non-controversial, but this also means that Google will have the ability to circumscribe the limits of acceptable communication, and they are asking us to trust them in having that much authority. Once again, consider what they did on behalf of China, and ask if they will not do the same if under pressure here. Will this site be censored for discussing issues of cannabis?

I would like to think that we could trust them, but I think it is past time to consider ways of indexing a web and distributing the counting in an open source way, and that’s been going on for awhile already. We call one form of organization a blogosphere.

Someone knows what it’s like to be the sad man

Doctor Biobrain remains the greatest psychoanalyst of the neoconservative mind anywhere on the net. Dick Cheney serves as his model psychopath, as examined by interviewer Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Here’s the video.

He looks to me like a man on the edge of a breakdown, he will have to cry soon. Thank you Mary.

Mensch

Russell Feingold is not running for president.

Unlike Joseph Lieberman, he is a mensch.

I want to take this morning’s post for a moment to discuss what we expect the senate to do. What do the members stand for and what will they stand for?

Will the Republicans follow their own base instincts? Yes, and not one of them now in the senate voted against the military commissions act of 20072006 — the act of abominations.

Why do I bring up Joe Lieberman? Because he is emblematic of what we face, a then-democrat he also voted for this monstrous war crime.

Why did Joe vote for torture? People have a lot of reasons they do things, but they come back to a fundamental question of whose interests they serve. Joe is accused of being the senator from Israel. It’s an unfair accusation, and assumes as well that Israel speaks with one voice. If America were held to the same standard it would be the tyrant’s voice the world would hear.

We have many voices, every country and nation. We have those within our number who pervert our desires for peace and turn it to warfare. Why do they do this?

Of course, as soon as I begin to explore the landscape of what motivates others, it becomes self-analysis very quickly, as it should. So I can only really speak to what thoughts are imaginable, conceivable to me.

Hubris is a possibility. Maybe Joe Lieberman sees this as his ticket to the presidency somehow?

At least for now, we know that Russ Feingold is not seeking the presidency. He is trying to preserve what is left of our nation before the tyrant destroys it and turns us into a banana republic.

Russ Feingold is the conscience of the senate.

Tidal wave

A very large wave begun in the very deepest parts of the ocean, it does not look like much out there because in the volume of water the depth of the wave is very slight. As it moves toward land it swells in size like a shark rising up out of the water, devouring the water ahead of itself.

If you have a little advance warning you can seek higher ground.

Eschaton immanentized

This is a very good review of the very bad situation. (Hat-tip digby, via Gavin M.) And sadness also on the passing of Robert Anton Wilson, but may he have joy in his life hereafter. Somehow I could not help thinking of how these things relate fnord.

Update: litbrit has more.

Black market goose liver doesn’t sound like a very good idea

Chicago bans foie gras.

This is ridiculous. People can have a debate on the morality of eating meat, too, and I for one prefer that all animals be humanely treated and organically fed if farm raised.

But prohibition does not work.

Please note again how this differs from the TFA ban in New York. People really do want to eat foie gras. I don’t care whether you agree with them or think they are despicable people, they are going to eat foie gras, and the more of a fuss you make about it, the more foie gras they are going to eat just to piss you off.

Also, it is delicious.

Via.

See which way the wind blows

Doctor Biobrain.

Adult content

Via Shakes, who thinks it’s inaccurate. I’m not so sure she understands how many have consented to this.

New day

Love to all

Impeachment

If George Walker Bush goes before the American people this week to commit thousands more men and women, many of whom have already seen more than one tour of duty, to subject them to the serious risk of death or permanent disability if they have not been mentally scarred for life already, against the advice of his generals, the congress and the vast majority of the American people, he is non compos mentis.

Of course it may be suspected this has already long been the case.

The madness of King George places all of us in serious danger.

Hops and cannabis

Tea only Not for me

I have tasted the hops and I would not use it in bread.

As a tea it is embittering.